Epilogue
by handsareforshaking
Summary: just what the title suggests. a proper denouement to The Lost Boys.


An epilogue to The Lost Boys, which in my opinion, and while I appreciated the joke, ended too abruptly. It led to the purchase of the novelization and this. Star is my least favorite character of the movie. Really, I loathed her and still do. So, naturally, this first story I post in this fandom is entirely from her perspective. I guess it was my way of making piece with the character, as well as some closure. ::shrugs:: There are no real parings in this, save for the barest hint of Michael/Star, though even _that_ I made more of a friendship out of. Perhaps a shadow of a past David/Star. Oddly, this was never what I was intending to post as my first story on here. In all honesty, nearly everything else I've written in The Lost Boys fandom has been mainly David/Michael (because, come on, have you SEEN the movie?); in fact, everything else I've written I think had David/Michael undertones. Even this, I suppose, if you look closely and choose to interpret certain things certain ways. In a few, I've written or hinted at David/Paul, David/Dwayne, David/Marko...David/pretty much anything that moves. I exaggerate (but only slightly, heh). Even Sam/Marko (okay, so this one is a stretch, but...its cute!), in one particular fic in progress. What I'm getting at is that, if you're not a slash fan, you probably won't enjoy my ususal work, soon to be posted, but chances are (I hope) you'll like this. I've marked it as 'in progress' not because I see the probability of a sequel, rather, because I've several interludes in mind (one actually made it to paper!) for this piece that I'd like to put up at various intervals.

And this note has gone on way too long, I see. I swear, I don't ramble like this is my actual writing! So, finally, the fic:

Epilogue

They'd moved. Had to, after what happened. The place was trashed, and though Michael's mother fallen back on her cheerful clean up mode, eventually even she had to admit defeat, as the kitchen and bathroom were pretty much lost causes. They found a small place in Santa Carla, just big enough for the family and Star, whom Michael made clear, would be staying with them. Star couldn't protest. Even if she had wanted to go home, back to her real home, where she'd lived before she came to Santa Carla on a Greyhound bus with nothing more than a backpack and no plans, she knew she wouldn't exactly be well received.

All of them had stayed at a (reasonably priced) hotel until the sale on the new house was final, then Michael and Sam and Star had gone back to see what they could salvage. Sam made a beeline for his wall of comics upstairs, and Michael began to load his weights into the back of his mother's SUV. Star hovered nearby, helping when she could, not being able to keep from glancing at the antlers whenever she went into the living room. David's body was gone, and there was no trace it had ever been there. In the bathtub and near the stereo there were faint traces of a fine powdered ash, but nothing more. The blood that had coated the walls and floors had vanished too, not leaving a stain. It looked for all the world, to anyone who hadn't seen the fight, like a small earthquake had shook the house, collapsing one of the walls and the fireplace. The three didn't stay long. The place they had now was just as out of the way from the center of town, and they settled in it as comfortably as they could.

Laddie was another matter. He wanted to stay with Star and the rest of them, and though they would have taken him in without question, his real family was still looking for him. Star heard a faint knock on her door the night before he had to go back. The boy came into her room silently, wide awake. Star knew herself how hard it was to adjust back to a normal sleeping schedule. He climbed into her lap and just sat there for a while, letting her stroke his hair. When he spoke it was quietly, a drowsy murmur, yet what he said made Star feel cold all over, even though she'd thought about it, even though she should have figured…

_I miss Dwayne. _As soon as he said it, she could feel the boy shaking, not even sobbing properly like a boy his age should. Star held him until he subsided, until he fell asleep, held him until she saw the sky lighten, the sun break over the horizon. It was the first sunrise she'd seen in five years.

Laddie left the next morning, returned home to welcoming arms, and Star said her goodbyes with a sharp pang of grief, promising him that they'd see each other again, but knowing in her heart they wouldn't. Soon the boy's mind would move on to other things, and she'd be all but forgotten. In a lot of ways though, it wasn't the loss of Laddie himself that hurt Star, but rather the feeling that she'd somehow severed her last connection with the Lost Boys.

She didn't miss them, not exactly. And she certainly wouldn't pretend she didn't cry with joy that night when the dust settled and that ever-present bloodlust finally left her. But hugging Michael, and hugging Laddie, she felt a strange, slightly hysterical bubble of laughter edge into her voice, one that she had had to force back down. Relief, yes, relief she had felt, but somewhere in all the celebrating the fact had eventually sunk in that she just lost the only people-well, _people_ was stretching it-that she'd actually really known for…how long had it been? A year? Less, or longer? She didn't remember. But Michael was there, and Michael still cared about her, and so she was happy.

The new house wasn't big, but Star did have her own room, something she'd never had before, even living with her biological family. Her window overlooked the ocean, and on warm nights (which were nearly every night), she'd sit on the ledge and close her eyes, feeling her hair tossed gently by the breeze off the water, and just listen to the sound of the waves slapping against rocks. And she felt like she was home. This was it, she thought, this is where I'm supposed to be.

Except that sometimes the wind would kick up just so, rushing by her, and it would remind her of flying, that incomparable sensation. She would spread her arms out at her sides, lose herself in it, remember sailing to a different home, one hidden in the labyrinth of rocks.

Star and Michael went for walks on the boardwalk, always together, always at night. They talked or they didn't; Michael would catch hold of her hand, slip an arm around her waist, or he wouldn't. They kept their eyes open, but they weren't really looking for anything, weren't really afraid anymore. Once, they walked back to the place in the caves, the place that David had said had once been the hottest resort in Santa Carla. They looked around, Michael with his hands in his jacket pockets and Star occasionally running her fingers over something: the Jim Morrison poster, the gold rim of the fountain. Their boots crunched over fragments of broken, jeweled glass of something that must have been beautiful once-that had been to them, beautiful and tempting. There was no blood left on the ground; Star hadn't expected there to be, but she had looked just the same. They shared a small smile when they passed Star's bed, eyes distant with remembering. After a fashion they left. It had felt…Star didn't if she could put the words together to describe it. Almost like a sort of melancholy dancing over an enemy's grave, she supposed.

Star tried to remember them as her enemy, to recapture some of the revulsion she felt when their faces twisted and warped, with the knowledge that she too would become that soon. But it seemed that the harder she tried, the more she could come up with only memories of them blazing down the beach on their bikes; strolling down the boardwalk with the crowd parting before them like the Red Sea. She could remember the way Paul would start to rock out whenever he heard a good song start up, jumping around and banging his head, wild hair falling around him making her laugh. Marko's smile, sideways and sort of dreamy; Star had wondered what Marko might have been if he hadn't become a Lost Bo. Maybe a painter, or a musician, some kind of artist, anyway. When she caught herself thinking these things, she'd shake her head, wrap her arms tightly around Michael and feel the steady, soothing rhythm of his heart through a thin cotton shirt.

She would have been alright, more than alright, if she could have talked about it to Michael. When they'd left the cave that last time though, he'd made it clear he didn't want to.

(_Star?_

_Hmm?_

Michael looked out over the dark waters, eyes roving the horizon. _I don't want to come back here again, Star. Ever. I wanna forget this place. I want to forget about everything. _He looked to Star for some understanding, some agreement in her.

She smiled a watery smile. _Oh, Michael. _She pulled his head down so that their foreheads touched, and nodded. _Okay._

_Especially him. I want to forget about him, Star. _

Star closed her eyes, nodding her head that yes, yes she could do that for him. She would forget too, as best she could, for Michael.

They stayed that way, pressed close, for a long time, until the sky had turned the color of coral against the strip of the ocean.

Since then, Star had tried, really, really tried, not to mention it, any of it. But sometimes she'd slip up. She'd see a boy speed by on a Triumph and she'd have to smile, just a little, remembering the nights she'd spent, arms tight around that cool strong waist, chin nuzzled on a shoulder of leather, watching the colors and the lights race by until they were one long, never-ending blur. Michael would ask her was she was thinking and she couldn't lie to him. Anytime she brought up any of them, even briefly, Michael's face would close, jaw tight, and he'd be quick to change the subject. Star would latch onto whatever he said and help him steer the conversation away, but her mind was back on that bike, the raucous laughter echoing in her head for all time.

It got easier, little by little, to keep her mind off it without a stinging pain shooting through her. School starting helped. Lucy had been adamant about enrolling her as a senior so she could graduate with Michael, and Star was fairly bright, even excelling in a few of her subjects. She wouldn't go to college, but she would get a job locally soon anyway, and earn enough money to rent an apartment, so she wasn't living off of the Emerson's charity forever. A new job, a new home, a new life, and after…

When you are a vampire, you don't really think about after. You had an eternity to make it what you would. _An eternity to party_, Paul had once said. _We're living the dream. Well, sorta. _Star didn't have an eternity anymore, and now just a lifetime seemed awfully short. Too short to figure out whom she was or how she wanted to spend it. Most of the time though? She didn't think about it. She was alive; there was air in her lungs and a soul in her body, and that was enough for her right now.

It was just that sometimes, she'd catch a glimpse of white blond hair, or see his face reflected in a store window, always gone whenever she found the courage to look back. And sometimes a bright night would spark in her the freedom, the magnitude of something beyond human nature; she would hear them then, clear as a bell, yelling and hollering, whooping and catcalling, voices riding on the wind. The Lost Boys, still running Santa Carla the way they always had, the way they always would be.

And she'd wonder.

Right, so. Drop a review, if you have the time. I love reviews, appreciate them, and will try to respond to them. However, I don't write for them. The amount of reviews I get won't dictate the amount of story I write. When a story is over it's over, and when it's not, though I may get hundreds of reviews telling me it's crap and wouldn't I rather pursue a career in say cooking, chances are I will undoubtedly turn out more crap until I run out of words to tell the story. But, reviews DO make my day, bad or good, so if you'd be so kind as to leave one, I'd be grateful and will more often then not check out your fics. Right, rambling again...will shut up, go to bed and be back soon with more fics!


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